


Lackadaisy Nostalgiac

by handful_ofdust



Category: Lackadaisy
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Period-Typical Anti-Semitism, Untranslated Slovak and Yiddish Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 17:19:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2356331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handful_ofdust/pseuds/handful_ofdust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So what happened, exactly, when Viktor Vasko and Mordecai Heller fell out? Nostalgia is a wicked drug.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_1927:_

  
“I hear you saw _him_ —Mister Heller,” only Ivy Pepper has the complete lack of discretion to blurt out, the day Viktor Vasko finally hobbles back into the Lackadaisy, using one of Atlas May's old walking sticks—donated by Mitzi May, who came over specially just to press it in his hand, along with a charmingly self-deprecating apology for not being able to afford better medical care and congratulations on having managed to snag some himself, without somehow managing to mention the name of the person really responsible for that “good luck” at all—as a cane. Everyone else on staff is smart enough to realize that a painfully slow-moving, barely-recovered Viktor is probably someone to not prod, on any subject...but this is the _dievka_ we're talking about, the chatterbox, Miss Flapper. And though it should annoy him, it never does.

  
So: “Yah,” he allows. “He come by. Don't stay long.”

  
“And you _let_ him?”

  
“Look at me, _dievka_. How I'm going to stop him?”

  
He's never been exactly sure how much Ivy understands about he and Mordecai—she's innocent in so many ways, yet hardly stupid. But even if she didn't have that note of horror in her voice, he already knows exactly how much she would deplore the idea of him thinking about Mordecai at all these days, given the way they parted.

  
“He's a terrible man, Viktor!” She tells him, anyways. “Horrible little...flashy-dressing, _watch_ -watching, New York...” To her credit, Viktor can see her clever little mind skipping away from the worst, most obvious insult she could give Mordecai, the one that's not even an insult at all, just the simple truth. Or indeed, the second-most obvious—

  
(—but that particular brush would tar Viktor as well, and she likes him, after all; about as much as he likes her, really. Or better, probably.)

  
“...thug!” She settles on, finally. Adding: “He was supposed to look after my uncle, but the minute something happened to him, what did he do? Run away! And after what he did to _you_ , too...I tell you, Viktor, that traitor deserves anything that happens to him—anything!”

  
To which Viktor can only shrug, and think, in turn: _But I am a terrible man also, little girl...far more terrible than you let yourself believe. Perhaps what he deserves is me, and I him. Perhaps what we both deserve is each other._

  
Still, her rage seems disproportionate, especially when supposedly exercised on his behalf; over-compensation for hidden fear, perhaps, which he can certainly understand. Fearing Mordecai is a very smart impulse, usually, in any context. Viktor certainly knows his knees would be thanking him today if only the sight of Mordecai coming towards him with his tie wrenched uncharacteristically askew had automatically set off the signals which went to his fists, rather than those which lead directly to his cock.

  
The fact is, though—he misses Mordecai, fiercely. No one else can understand what they've been called upon to do, let alone what they've actually done, together. The graves he's dug while Mordecai shot weeping men in the back of the head, bottle-glass eyes narrowed only slightly through red-misted lenses. The way Mordecai's shoulder occasionally quivers under an unwary touch, no matter how stiff he holds himself. Viktor was in the War, and that's a thing nobody who wasn't there will ever be able to understand; Mordecai, who's never pretended to, has spent his whole life thus far fighting a very different sort of war, one which isn't even close to ending. Both of them have killed for foolish reasons, be it at the behest of kings and Presidents or because Atlas May paid them to. Yet Mordecai, like Ivy, has nevertheless managed to maintain a strange sort of purity—a faith in his own moral code, if nothing else. And that only up until the end.

  
 _What does he have to maintain him now?_ Viktor sometimes wonders.

  
_1924:_

  
That first time between them was fast as anything Viktor'd ever done in the trenches, a drunken hit-and-run mainly consisting of rubbing, jerking, kissing, hard and rough and awkward. After, since there was nowhere pressing either of them had to be right at that moment, Viktor was spurred by curiosity—a spirit of adventure, almost, or haphazard experimentation—to push Mordecai back and use his mouth the way others occasionally had on him, just to see what would happen. And Mordecai, though startled, proved a fast learner, like always; when he reciprocated, his exacting, finicky attention to detail made Viktor first want to scream, then quickly pass through into a state where he found himself unable to keep from doing so.

  
“You've done...this...before,” Mordecai didn't quite ask him, later still—a statement, though with a definite inquiring upwards lilt to it, an inherent hint of: _Elaborate, please. Give details._

  
“In the Var, yes.” Adding, as a joke, more than anything else: “Vhat, did you tink I vas virgin?” And then, a bit less certain, while Mordecai cast him a cold eye: “I mean, _you_...this vas not _your_ first time...”

  
( _Was_ it?)

  
“Of course not,” Mordecai replied, quick and brisk, with no sort of emphasis at all. So Viktor would know he wanted Viktor to know he was lying.

  
Not the next day or even the next week, meanwhile, Viktor was working alone in the garage, trying to figure out exactly what else he could remove from the truck to create yet more storage space for contraband and still keep it running fairly efficiently, when Atlas May suddenly appeared behind him, soundless as a cat—a typical trick, though not one you'd necessarily expect from a man pushing fifty—and asked:

  
“So, Viktor, my friend—the other night, after that bunny hug-tasting incident of his, did Mordecai get home all right? 'Cause I saw him the morning after, from a distance, and it did seem to me as though he might be walkin' a bit funny.”

  
Viktor took a moment, mind racing—prevarication was hardly his strong suit, as he well knew—and decided that in such a situation, half the truth would probably sound better than none of it. “He, ehhh, had hangover; ve both did, but he vas embarrassed. He is...not so good vith liquor, you may haf noticed.”

  
“No, most of the Hebrew persuasion aren't, from what I've seen, though they sure do like the money it brings.” Then slipped in, gently enough, as they smiled at each other: “So why was it he ended up at your place again last night, exactly? Don't mean to pry, but I saw him putting on a clean shirt in the washroom this morning, and using the mirror to shave. Not very characteristic behaviour, for our fastidious young Mister Heller.”

  
“Ve stay up late, doing jobs, you know that. Sometimes, is easier—”

  
“For two weeks in in a row? Maybe you both need help with your scheduling. Or—tell me the truth now, Viktor, I won't judge. Just like to know how things are apportioned, amongst my employees.”

  
“You...should ask him, maybe?”

  
It was the most chivalrous thing he could think of to say, under the circumstances; diplomatic, or as much so as Viktor ever could be. But seeing how they both knew how well _that_ particular conversation was likely to go, Atlas just laughed a bit to himself, before continuing—

  
“So _you're_ the one finally deflowered the battlin' bookkeeper, after half the drunken flibbertigibbets in St. Louis failed...well, now. He's only a Lucifer-proud young Jew with two guns and no sense of humour; sure it'll all work out, in the end.”

  
Viktor frowned. “Vhat does him being Jew haf to do vith—”

  
“Oh, they're not so hot on such shenanigans, culturally. You didn't know that? 'Leviticus' _is_ part of the _Old_ Testament, after all.”

  
“Huh. Vell, even so...Mordecai does vhat he vants.”

  
“He does at that,” Atlas agreed, re-adjusting the daisy in his button-hole, “and it's cost him dear. Yet profited me, so I s'pose I've come out all the better, by the bargain.”

  
It was the most intimate single conversation he and his employer had ever had, Viktor realized, at least thus far. Which was odd in itself, along with the realization that Atlas—who more often than not had his arm slung 'round Mordecai's narrow shoulders, figuratively if not literally, maintaining the pose of mentor and apprentice they'd come back from New York striking—had chosen to come to _Viktor_ with this, first. To appeal to him—what? Man to man?

  
( _No: Mordecai is a_ man _too, now, undoubtedly. Not boy, not anymore..._ )

  
But perhaps that was the stumbling-block, in itself. Perhaps Atlas didn't feel like he knew Mordecai the way he once had, and was thus forced to deal with someone who knew him—better. Better than anyone whose last name wasn't Heller, at any rate.

  
So: “Vhat happened, in New York?” Viktor found himself asking, after literal years of avoiding the subject. To which Atlas at first merely sighed ( _Better not, my massive Slovak friend_ ) and thought, before replying:

  
“What happened was...Mordecai killed a number of men he wasn't supposed to kill, right in front of me and the world. Hell, he wasn't _supposed_ to kill any—wasn't what they paid him for. I don't think he even knew he could do it himself, beforehand. But that day, the exact right impetus came along, and—my, my. It was like watching something bein' born, all raw and bloody and screaming. 'Cept for the fact that it was everybody else he was pullin' it out of, of course, and slappin' its ass with a bullet.”

  
“He has skill.”

  
“Yes he does. Has a talent, is what. And now we have _him_ , it's that talent's gonna give us our edge up on the competition. You'll see—gonna get to the point where everyone in St. Louis is afraid to say his name out loud, for fear of callin' up the Devil. That's who you popped the cherry on, Viktor: Well done.”

  
“Yah, vell, they _should_ be scared.”

  
“And they will be, everyone, from pillar to post—already are. But not you, my boy; you'll be the one person can turn Mordecai off, as well as on, and live. You've seen to that.”

  
Here he stopped, cocked an eyebrow at Viktor, as though he'd just made a joke only the two of them could understand. While Viktor stared down at him, standing there in his well-cut suit; dirty money dressed up clean, just like the rest of them. Except...smarter, supposedly. If only from his own point of view.

  
Thinking: _And now I start to see why you put us together, maybe, in the first place—because even though like calls to like, unalike sometimes calls stronger. Because it kept your wife's sad, shrewd eyes away from Mordecai, and put him in a place where his own urges kept on building like an itch he couldn't scratch without somebody else's help...even mine. All of which is useful to you, isn't it, Mister May? Useful if it works, or even if it doesn't. Useful, either way._

  
He didn't like feeling used, necessarily; had had enough of it back in France, really. But having known what he was walking into when he first took Atlas's pay, he really couldn't complain.

  
“So here's the question,” Atlas said, studying his manicure, probably well aware of every last connection Viktor had just made, and banking on the fact that he'd done it far too slowly to keep any of it from mattering. “Will all...this, between you two, be a problem, Viktor?”

  
“ _Vill_ it?”

  
“Not for me.”

  
“For me, either.”

  
“And Mordecai?”

  
“You should _ask_ him, like I said. But...no, I don't tink. No.”

  
“Let's hope you're right,” Atlas said, and disappeared, fading back into the dark.


	2. Chapter 2

Atlas never did talk to Mordecai, that Viktor could confirm—though grantedly, exactly how Viktor would have known if he did he wasn't quite sure, unless he'd actually been there at the time. But things went on, nevertheless; they continued their explorations, gradually graduating from hands to mouths to everything else. Typically, it was most often Mordecai (the same man who, Viktor was becoming increasingly convinced, genuinely seemed to think he was invincible, even when bleeding out) brow-beating _Viktor_ to go further, rather than the other way around; bastard could always twitch Viktor's reins from any position, whether above or below.

  
“You don't vant that,” he told him, when Mordecai first suggested it. “It is...messy. And it vill hurt.”

  
“Everything's messy—and as for the other, so? You think I can't take it?”

  
“ _What_? Listen, you...fuck is not _dare_ , Mordecai, God damn! Fuck is fuck, only.”

  
“I don't know what you're trying to say, exactly. Do... _you_ not want to? Is that it?”

  
“...no, I do.”

  
“Well, then.”

  
What he'd really wanted to ask, of course, had been the most obvious question—the one he never would, for fear of upsetting their arrangement's already-delicate balance: _Does everything_ have _to hurt, with you? Is it that really how you_ like _it, little man, or is simply that you're so used to struggle that if something doesn't leave a scar, you won't know if it's real?_

  
Which might have been somewhat...judgemental on Viktor's part, especially considering just how many scars _he_ bore. What was provable, however—had _been_ proven, now, more times than was probably good for either of them—was that much as he acted prim as a paper saint during strict business hours, there was something inside Mordecai Heller which obviously craved to be pushed over and stroked hard, with regularity. An alleycat's instinct for pleasurable pain, in other words—some part of him that longed to struggle and howl towards climax with its claws out, marking territory and being marked, in turn.

  
And now that Viktor had been shown proof of that truth directly he couldn't ever unsee it, or not long to see it again: Mordecai in full disarray with his head tipped back and his neck straining, palms tight over both eyes, purple-hard cock jerking each time Viktor stirred 'round inside him—lost, undone, a tic at the corner of his mouth fluttering wildly as he tried, then failed, to suppress a growling moan. The happy ruin of a perfect mechanism, teeth grinding frighteningly, mewling out curses between grunts: _Oy, azoy azoy azoy, ikh kim shoyn balt, tatenyoo ziser, vey is mir, gevalt!_

  
It was almost worth having survived what Viktor already had to be so joyfully surprised by something, right when he'd been on the verge of resigning himself to dour middle age: _Staré, ako svojho času;_ old before his time. Not so long since he'd been back on the farm, young and stupid enough to think America meant freedom, and politicians meant what they said. Not so long since he'd been able look at whatever was in front of him and see it twice, once for each eye.

  
Even upright and with all his clothes back on, though, Mordecai never seemed to have any idea how he looked to other people when he didn't have a gun in his hands—how exotically interesting his very apparent lack of interest in anything but the entirely practical could be. That woman in the train station; Mitzi May, still, whenever she'd made sure Atlas was looking elsewhere. Or Viktor, cocking his head to study Mordecai's high-nosed profile in the car—more often than was safe, considering he had no depth perception left to drive with—and wondering just what the hell went on in there, what odd, contortive patterns of thought, to produce the conversations they kept on having.

  
This dapper, unsentimental little man with that bright green screwdriver gaze of his, made to take things apart under pressure. And probably not _so_ “little”, really, when stood next to anyone besides Viktor, given how he hit a nice midpoint somewhere between Viktor's chest and the true tininess of Ivy or Mitzi—but there was still a broad streak of child running through Mordecai, even now: His inability to compromise, his insistence on having things his way, or no way at all. His bedrock certainty that he would, eventually, be betrayed, let down, even by those he cared for...

  
(or most especially by them, perhaps)

  
What Viktor would give to have never delivered on that last promise, even inadvertantly. But then again, thinking it over, he suspected Mordecai would always have found a way to rationalize leaving him behind, one way or another.

  
“Next time,” Viktor told him, afterwards, “ve go slower, spend more time, ehhh...build up to it. Use someting more than spit, too.”

  
“I was _fine_.”

  
“Yes, yes—you the toughest Jew in St. Louis, and ve all know it. But 'til you more used to, ve go _slow_ , or ve damn vell stop.”

  
Viktor felt Mordecai hiss, mutinous and muffled, into the side of his neck. Then maintain, after a long pause: “Well, we're not going to _stop_...”

  
_...good._

  
Confirmation both of them had been looking for, apparently, though neither of them had wanted to give it. And for all Viktor felt as though he had tricked Mordecai into admitting it, he didn't feel too bad, considering the result.

  
Later, brushing Mordecai's complaints aside—“Oh, really...Now, there is no way that is sanitary. No, don't stop, don't...Excuse me, kissing, after that? Wash your mouth out!”—Viktor would still manage to thrust his dirtied tongue deep into him anyways, taking him unawares and from an angle, reeking of vodka and semen. Thinking: _This is YOU I taste of, little bitch—your cock, your ass, your blood. And I don't care a damn what you think of me for wanting to put my mouth on you everywhere I see fit, treat you as though you're worth the worship; holy, one of God's creatures, not...whatever it is that you think you are._

  
But: _Don't be idiot enough to say_ love _out loud, fool,_ his battle-trained gut told him, _whatever else you do—not here, not now. Not to_ this _one..._

  
(not yet)

  
And: “Ugh!” Mordecai spat, the minute he released him. “Do you _ever_ listen? Just do your business, _behaimeh,_ and get off of me.”

  
A snort: “ _My_ business? Mine, only?” Viktor leant in again, hard, and bore down 'til Mordecai gave way, gasping. “You are ungrateful. Don't know how to appreciate. But I forgive, 'cause you don't know better.”

  
“That's—ah!—very _big_ of you.”

  
“I am big man, yah. Maybe you notice.”

  
“Uhhhh. And...maybe not so much, if you think you have to _tell_ me about it, given...”

  
So sarcastic, bright and oh so bitter, his smart mouth full of things Viktor didn't care to hear right then—and didn't have to, either. Not if he simply chose to ignore him and keep on with what he was already doing, 'til both of them were too breathless to even be able to talk, anymore.

  
“ _Milujem ťa, ty hlupák,_ ” Viktor even dared to rumble in his ear as they lay there entwined, trusting that lack of translation might muddy the waters a little, at least enough to save face. But some things maybe sounded the same in every language, he supposed. Because—

  
“Really, Viktor, I didn't know you were such a _romantic,_ ” was all Mordecai sneered in reply, rolling his great green eyes. And turned his face away.


	3. Chapter 3

_1926_

  
Cold, rainy weather, typical for the season; every part of Viktor ached, though not as badly as every part of him _would_ ache, in future. But sometimes—most-times, in fact—it was better, by far, not to know these things beforehand.

  
In other news, there also appeared to be something going on between Atlas and Mordecai, Mordecai and Mitzi, maybe even between Mordecai, Mitzi _and_ Atlas all at once—more than Viktor was privy to, or wanted to be. Since seeing Mordecai less and less often made him antsy, he tried his best to keep himself too busy to wonder why he wasn't being invited along on these little excursions, wherever Atlas was sending Mordecai to do...whatever. Not as though Mordecai didn't know his way around a bag of quicklime, after all, and that trench-knife Viktor had given him--his own, once, and in no way an item of sentimental value, except in that Mordecai had first asked him nicely for it, then shown his gratitude in some fairly elaborate ways after Viktor had simply shrugged, and said: _Take, sure, is no use to ME_ \--was good for jointing all sorts of meat.

  
So it did surprise him, if pleasantly, to let himself into his apartment and find Mordecai already there: Perched on the bed, fully dressed, looking fixedly “out” the window even though its blinds were still securely drawn. When Viktor coughed, his pince-nez caught the light from the hallway as he looked 'round, lighting them up like a pair of silver dimes to hide his eyes, though—oddly enough—Viktor didn't spot either hand heading towards one of his hidden guns. Not like the Mordecai he'd come to know, to be so...indifferent?...to potential danger, for all he might admit, if pressed, that he'd long ago ceased to register Viktor as any sort of real threat.

  
“You vait for me,” Viktor observed. “Could haf turned the light on, if you vanted.”

  
“I didn't want to waste electricity.”

  
“Chah, Atlas pay for that. Is no problem.”

  
“Yes, well.” Mordecai turned his gaze back on the window, face settling again like a mask, stiff and white. “Perhaps it might be better not to...”

  
But here his voice died away mid-sentence, abruptly gone from waspish to silent, with nothing in between. While Viktor narrowed his own, trying to connect what he had, in order to figure out the second half of that observation: Better not to waste Atlas's money, better not to boast about it? Better not to—

  
( _take that for granted, from now on_ )

  
—was what he would figure out, eventually. Long past the point it mattered anymore.

  
Viktor just shrugged again, however, and sat down on the bed, which squealed out its usual protest. Telling Mordecai: “Is good to see you, you know, alvays. I don't like it vhen you stay avay.”

  
“Well, it's not as though this is the only place we have to...do this in. I do have an apartment too, you know; you could come there, if you wanted.”

  
The very fact that this was the first time Mordecai had ever made such an offer, in four solid years of—whatever this was—immediately raised Viktor's hackles.

  
“Vhat has happened?” He demanded.

  
Mordecai took off his pince-nez and began to polish them, absently, against the well-cut cuff of one immaculate sleeve. “Define 'happened',” he replied, voice dimming further, strangely muffled, almost hesitant.

  
“There is something wrong vith you, I know it. You tell me—”

  
Still polishing, the movements ever-smaller, more precise yet less effective. “You'll...have to be more...specific.”

  
“Mordecai...” Viktor peered closer, narrowing his eye. “...you are not _crying_.”

  
He knew he'd gone too far even as he said it, confirmed when the man in question gave a sniff that was probably meant to sound scornful, but came out a bit too liquid for dignity. So Viktor kept quiet, from then on; just laid one hand on the back of his neck, feeling vertebrae flex and bunch under his palm, but didn't press things, otherwise. And they both sat there in silence, together but apart, for what seemed a small eternity.

  
“You didn't haf to come here,” Viktor said, finally. To which Mordecai snapped back, still not turning—

  
“Where else would I go, fool? You're—the only person in this filthy city who cares if I live or die, aside from Atlas. And then only because he'd have to replace me, if I did.”

  
Now it was Viktor's turn to snort. “Oh, plenty of people vant to see _you_ die, little killer, don't you vorry. And don't call _me_ 'fool', vhen you the vone—”

  
“I am _not_ crying, _a broch_!”

  
“Af course not.”

  
“—and anyhow, I'll call you that if I want, thank you very much! You _are_ a fool. I let a _fool_ fuck me, that's what I did—so yes, you're right: Too many damn times, entirely, not to call myself one, too.” But here he paused, perhaps realizing he was gripping his spectacles so tightly as to whiten his knuckles, and laid them gently down on the windowsill, before he did them any permanent damage. “You ask me why I don't seek out other Jews here? That's why: Because by their standards, by any _good_ Jew's standards, all I am or can ever be is _un dover-akher mit un goyisher kopf_ , the kind of Jew who makes all goys hate other Jews. In that I lay down with pigs—of my own free will, mind you—so now I _am_ one.”

  
Viktor raised his remaining eye's brow. “I am not pig,” he told him. “You, either.”

  
“I didn't mean—”

  
“I know, I know; oh, Mordecai. Come here, to me. Come.”

  
“ _No._ ”

  
“Here, naow; I vant you. And I don't let you go, no matter vhat, so don't try and make me.”

  
Turning him, brooking no denial, Viktor let Mordecai bat his hands away, but only once, and only in pretence—as an excuse to get closer, one knee between Mordecai's fancy pant-legs with the rest of him crushed back against the mattress, too heavy for him to squirm free. Kissed him long and hard and pantingly deep, wondering as he did if he was doomed to always have to handle him this way. Wondering if he'd actually start to miss it, if by some miracle the day ever came when Mordecai decided that he didn't.

  
“Not foolish, neither of us,” Viktor told him, in one ear, once he seemed as though he'd finally stopped fighting; gone quiet again, at least, not so much resigned as taut and thrumming, stiff with forbearance. “Nobody here to see vhat ve do except us, not even God. Naow cry all you vant or don't, I don't care; either vay is fine, I don't stop you. Not so long as you don't try to stop _me_.”

  
Expecting another curse in reply, or even another blow. But Mordecai simply shook his head instead, eyes screwed shut, and pulled him down on top of him with both hands wound in his hair, yanking so hard Viktor almost felt like weeping too, 'til he found other things to distract himself with.

  
He was actually stupid enough to think things were settled, after that. _Never assume,_ his platoon-leader had said, more than enough times—but seeing how Viktor's grasp of English back then had been even worse than it was now, he could maybe be forgiven for forgetting.


	4. Chapter 4

Half a week on, then; the roundhouse shock of Atlas's demise, body found bullet-perforated in an alley, with no one—not even Mordecai—in attendance. Mitzi drifting through the expected motions, ignoring significant looks exchanged in her wake; Ivy red-eyed and feverish; even Rocky Rickaby taken aback, stunned to (sadly momentary) silence. Though rumours flew from every direction, Viktor gave them little credence; as always, who he wanted to hear things from—especially now—was the source, no one else. And in this case, neither of the people he suspected had the most information were talking...one because she chose not to, the other prevented from doing so by his own absence.

  
So Viktor did whatever he could to keep things running, as the rats began to desert what they already assumed was a sinking ship, but the plain fact was working with Mordecai all these years had spoiled him, to the point where doing things single-handed now felt...odd, blunt, clumsy; maimed, almost. Utterly unnatural.

  
These days, when he thinks of the way his heart lurched to finally see Mordecai appear at the garage door—so foolishly glad, uncomprehending of the threat, lulled into a false sense of security from having it so seldom turned on him—it makes him want to spit.

  
“Vhere haf you been?” He demanded, without preamble.

  
“Packing,” Mordecai replied, in much the same tone—though since that was simply the tone he _used_ , generally, it sent up no red flags. “I have to go. I—wanted to tell you, before I did.”

  
“ _Vhat_ is it you do?”

  
“ _Leaving,_ Viktor; I told you. I have to _go_.”

  
“Go vhere? I don't...back to New York?”

  
“I can't go back to New York, Viktor, do you not understand that? I can never go back. When I want to die, that's when. But right now, even now, I don't _want_ to die. Not yet.”

  
“So you stay.”

  
“No, I _go_.” They stared at each other a moment, both seemingly equally flummoxed by the other's willful lack of understanding. “You could come as well,” Mordecai offered, at last, pointing out what he appeared to think was the obvious, to which Viktor just snorted.

  
“Vith no job?” He asked.

  
“I've had offers.”

  
(And: _Oh yes, of course you have. Beautiful little monster, Atlas's deadly-sure secret weapon. Not so many people passing the hat 'round for the big Slovak, though, with the bad knee and only one eye..._ )

  
“ _I_ don't get offers,” Viktor rumbled; Mordecai made a dismissive gesture, like: _Don't be an idiot, idiot._ Claiming—

  
“That wouldn't have to matter. They want me, badly, enough to make concessions; if I told them to take you too, they would.”

  
( _And this is true too, as we both know._ )

  
“Vhat are you saying? Atlas is dead, Mordecai; the Lackadaisy is sinking ship, vithout him. Miss Mitzi, she needs us—“

  
Mordecai snarled. “'Miss Mitzi'!” He repeated, bitter-furious, mocking his own wounds. Then, with something more like a bad parody of his usual control: “Miss _Mitzi_...has had all she's going to have from me, for now. I did—well, I did what I had to, my duty, and it's done, and so am I. That's all there is to say. And I _can't stay here._ ”

  
“Yes, you _can_ , god _damn_. Atlas—“

  
“Is _dead_ , just like you said. He may have brought me here, Viktor, but you kept me here; I had a life, even if I didn't want it, not at first. And now he's gone, there's nothing—”

  
“Notting?”

  
“...you know what I mean.”

  
“No, I don't. You don't have to do anyting, you don't vant. So stay, Mordecai—stay here, stay vith me. Stay _for_ me, you care so much—”

  
“God damn you, _no_!”

  
How had things accelerated so quickly? Viktor still doesn't know, a year later. Only that they were struggling when it happened, Viktor trying to overpower him, falling back on old tricks—nose to nose, with Viktor keeping up a constant stream of pleading he could barely remember anymore: _Is stupid, come ON, you don't go, don't have to, and I don't go, either...vould this be so bad?_ And that that, or thereabouts, must have been when Mordecai jerked his gun free—maybe only wanting to warn Viktor away, press it into him so hard he'd have a barrel-shaped bruise somewhere obvious, somewhere inconvenient—but somehow pulled the trigger instead, while it was still pressed to Viktor's "good" knee. The blast like a hellish rim-shot, punctuating the world's worst joke: _There, see what you made me do—how about it,_ golem _? Believe I mean what I say_ now _?_

  
Not actually saying any of these things, of course. Simply looking down at him in silence as Viktor flopped, roaring, hands pressed tight under the wound: Stock-still and rigid, his face wiped blank, utterly impenetrable. Until, at last, he straightened his pince-nez—carefully re-setting them at an angle which differed only by miniscule degrees from where they'd been just seconds before—and told him, again without any perceptible emphasis:

  
“...and now you'll _have_ to leave, after you—when you're better. You'll have to. Can't _stay_ , can't hope to do this sort of work, not with—”

  
“ _Jezis, boze moi!_ You—oh my _God_ , _vhat_? _VHAT?_ ”

  
“I simply—I just—I—don't look at me that way, Viktor! This is all _your_ fault!”

  
“ _How_ , Christ, may you be fucked by goats? _How_ is it my—”

  
With a great wrench and roll, he almost made it up, grabbing for Mordecai's pant-leg as the other man skipped back, but the strain was impossible; Viktor fell once more, with less a scream than a groan. Clawed at the floor 'til he finally managed to bring out, between gritted teeth—

  
“Kill you if I see you again! _KILL_ you, Mordecai!”

  
“I'll call for the doctor,” was all Mordecai said, neat and cold and clinical as a tray full of spotless steel instruments, on his way out the door.


	5. Chapter 5

_1927:_

  
So here he is today, taking yet one more engine apart in the very same garage, where he always seems to find himself—that or downstairs, attempting to play barkeep for a nightly “crowd” of five to none. Wondering what on earth Rocky and that cousin of his could possibly have done to rile the man who used to own this truck of “his” up so explosively, not to mention what they ended up doing with his body, after they discovered it; he hopes it was them, anyhow. Since they probably only figured it out once the man began to smell, and he if he had to wish that particular surprise on anyone, he'd prefer it didn't turn out to be Ivy Pepper.

  
And hurting, at the same time, always: Everywhere, inside and out—all day and most of the night, with little recompense, no relief. Like it is, in fact, his job.

  
Still, the tricks a pain-dazed mind plays on itself can at least provide distraction. Just last night, he only now remembers, he dreamt that Mordecai Heller came stealing into his room on silent feet, stripped off and got into bed with him, fitted his body along the side of Viktor's and dug his face into the crook of Viktor's neck, where the pulse pounds. And then fell asleep, fast and deep as any child.

  
More a memory than a dream, he supposes; six of one, half-dozen of the other. And something he used to think would never happen again, ever, though after certain events of the last few weeks, he's no longer quite so sure.

  
Viktor comes to with a spanner in his hand, having probably loosened and re-tightened the same nuts several times in a row. Sighing, he puts the tool back down and takes up his cane instead, hobbling for the back door—maybe he'll eat lunch, then try again. And at first he thinks he's still fooling himself, because the closer he gets to the door-knob, the more distinctly he seems to hear voices, one of which _might_ be Mordecai's—hard to tell, though, because (on further reflection) it's more like two voices, or maybe four: One woman's, unamused, plus another woman's, very amused indeed. And the same again, except with two men.

  
He turns the knob and puts his shoulder to the door, leaning on it hard enough to grunt, until it opens to reveal—God Almighty, yes: Mordecai, trenchcoat buttoned up to his habitual red tie, hat in hand (he always removes it when talking to a lady), trying his best not to react as Ivy pokes him in the chest, twisting her finger like a dagger. Behind him are two people who Viktor's never seen before: Siblings if similarity of feature is anything to go by, not to mentioned similarly well-dressed, covertly armed and leaned up lazily against the car they all must have come in, trading jokes in a language that sounds _something_ like French, but not quite.

  
“I'm not sure why this all has to be so _dramatic,_ Miss Pepper,” Mordecai is saying. “I need to talk with Viktor, that's all; I've done it before, and recently.”

  
“Yeah? Well...you can't do it now! Viktor doesn't want to see you, _Mister_ Heller, so the sooner you get that through your thick—”

  
“I'd much prefer to hear that from him.”

  
“And I'd much prefer you _leave_ before things get ugly, you and your two—who is it these mooks are, exactly?”

  
Sister raises her high-plucked eyebrows, while brother gives a great, charming guffaw. “Us?” She drawls, like Ivy's the cutest thing she's seen today. “All you got to know 'bout _us,_ p'tite, is we work wit' Mister Heller, jus' lak you use to. 'Cept fo' a different flower.”

  
Ivy bristles, shooting back: “I never _worked_ with him, thank you _very_ much!” To which Mordecai simply nods, and replies—

  
“That's right, you never did; simply benefitted from the work _we_ carried out, Viktor and I, on your uncle's behalf. Just like him.”

  
“Don't you talk about my uncle, you—”

  
“ _Dievka,_ ” Viktor says warningly, from right behind her, making her jump and the other three turn. Brother and sister both look him up and down, frankly appraising, after which brother gives an appreciative whistle, while sister fans herself ostentatiously. Remarking, a moment later, to Mordecai: “Dis him? Ooh la! He ain' _dat_ old.”

  
Now it's Mordecai's turn to raise a brow. And: “Yes, well,” he replies. “What did I tell you?”

  
“Not much, peekon, lak always.” With a flirtatious glance Viktor's way: “Guess you use to dat, dough, prob'ly. Ain' dat right, Slovak man?”

  
Viktor shrugs, provoking a flurry of fresh laughter; the two of them have themselves a grand time finding comedy at Mordecai's expense, while Mordecai himself studies his watch, utterly unperturbed. Caught between, Ivy obviously doesn't even know which way to stand so she can see everybody at once, let alone how to react to the spectacle.

  
“ _Mais,_ we fine wit' dat, us,” brother finally concludes. To Ivy: “So, mousie—you serve _un bonne repas'_ in dis Little Daisy of yours, is what I hear. True, dat?”

  
He's already taken a step towards her, straightening up, and Viktor watches her shiver in his shadow, less with fear than with fascination. “We, uh...” she begins. “...well, the stove isn't on, I don't think.”

  
“Oh, I'm good wit' stoves, me. Let me in, I fix it up for you real nice.”

  
“I don't—”

  
“Aw, c'mon now, _cher,_ what it's gon' hurt? Give dem two time to get re-acquaint', wit no interruption.”

  
Have her pinned between them now, one on each arm, a sight which might make Viktor bristle if sister wasn't giving him a wink at the same time, or if Mordecai weren't so relaxed around them, either. Relaxed as he ever is, at any rate: _Business_ relaxed, with just the tiniest smidgen of something more...familiar. Which means he must trust them, in his own odd way—as far as they can throw _him_ , at any rate.

  
And should the implications make Viktor jealous? Hardly. It's been a year, after all; Mordecai's a grown man, well able to defend himself and fully capable of making his own decisions. Not to mention how—going strictly by the pair's male half's effect on Ivy, along with that of its female half on Viktor himself—these two seem as though they might well be...difficult to resist, in general.

  
But then again...

  
 _...he did come back to me, first,_ Viktor can't quite keep himself from thinking. As though that really means anything.

  
“Eep,” is all Ivy really has time to say, vaguely, before they hustle her off through the Little Daisy Cafe kitchen door. And then it's just Viktor and Mordecai, alone at last—Viktor stepping back, holding the garage door open once more; Mordecai inclining his head, dignified as ever, and stepping through past him, graciously allowing Viktor to block the only exit.


	6. Chapter 6

“I miss you since you come visit,” Viktor tells him, once he feels the silence has stretched on long enough.

  
Mordecai sighs. “I thought you might. Which proves it really _was_ a mistake, in the first place.”

  
“Surprised it took you so long, only.”

  
“Are you? As I recall, the last time we actually...spoke, before that, ended with you telling me you were going to kill me. So perhaps I stayed away because I didn't want you to try.”

  
“You shoot me in knee, Mordecai. I vas angry.”

  
“I _told_ you why I did that, just the other—“

  
“One year _later_ you tell me, something. And _still_ it makes no sense!”

  
Looking down, softer: “...I can't help that.”

  
Again, the silence—until finally, Viktor's had more than enough. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, and go down swinging; ask the questions his mind most shies from, no matter how disturbing their answers turn out to be.

  
So: “Mordecai,” he says. “Did you kill Atlas?”

  
“I can't tell you.”

  
“So you did.” Mordecai shakes his head, almost helplessly. “...you didn't? Is—complicated?”

  
“I _can't_ tell you,” he repeats.

  
“Should I ask Miss Mitzi?”

  
Through his teeth: “ _I...can't...tell you._ ”

  
“And that's all.”

  
“It's—the only answer I have, Viktor, please believe that. And I can keep saying it all day if you make me, but it really won't change anything, not even a little. Will it?”

  
(So _stop asking._ )

  
Impossible man. But then, Viktor knew that already.

  
“...all right,” he hears himself say, eventually. “Then vhat is it you come here to talk to me abaout?”

  
Having already tucked away his watch, Mordecai looks at his hat instead, then stops, with a twitch of effort—clears a careful place for it on the work-bench and sets it down, regardless of the mess around it, so that he can turn Viktor's way, give him his full attention. “When I visited you, I told you that Mitzi had implied it was my actions, in Asa Sweet's service, which gave rise to your recent...difficulties. At the time, I rejected that thesis as mere rhetoric, a cheap attempt to appeal to my sympathies by someone already under fire. But on closer consideration, I since find—I might, _perhaps_ , have been overstating the case, just slightly.”

  
Viktor blinks, trying to parse out the sentence, which defeats him. “Not sure vhat you mean,” he admits.

  
“What I _mean_ is...just as I begin to suspect Mister Sweet may have behaved fairly unprofessionally towards me, most specifically in terms of lying to my face about why certain obstacles to his business needed to be removed after already having hired me to remove said obstacles, it might be that when I tidied up Atlas's old weapons cache, I may have not been _entirely_ forthcoming to Mister Sweet about exactly how many weapons and boxes of ammunition my incursion netted me. That there may have been overage, and that that overage may have ended up...somewhere, perhaps one of those old drops we used to use in the woods—you know the ones. You were always better at finding them than I was. As though you had a map in your head.”

  
“I vas? ...oh yes, that's right, I vas. I do.”

  
“In which case, you might want to consult that map of yours again, soonish. Take the zoot-suiter and his new chum out into the woods, go searching around, see what turns up.” A beat. “I'm sure you could turn something up, and fairly quickly.”

  
“It...vould be good, to haf veapons,” Viktor says, examining Mordecai like he hasn't seen him naked just the other week, while Mordecai meets his eyes with qualm. “To, ehhh—vhat is phrase: Redress balance of power.”

  
“Redress rather than restore, yes, I should think so. Be prepared.”

  
“Forevarned is forearmed, yah?”

  
“That's what I've always said.”

  
“I remember.” Viktor smiles at Mordecai, with such a depth of wearied affection it surprises even him. “You...vill lose your job, I tink.”

  
“Unlikely. Let me be clear, though, to avoid any misunderstandings, no matter how many trade secrets I may have just given away: Come at me when I'm on the clock, and I _will_ shoot you, believe you me, along with anyone else whose name Asa Sweet slips under my door.”

  
“I believe you.”

  
“...good.” He picks his hat up once more and starts brushing it clean, frowning. “That said, however—”

  
“—he ain' on de clock jus' right now,” the “French” girl puts in, from the doorway, appearing unexpectedly by Viktor's massive elbow. “Dat might be what he wanna say, _le peekon,_ he ever work himself 'roun' to it.”

  
Mordecai fixes her, trying to stare green death through those fussy little lenses—but lo and behold, it doesn't work any better on her than it ever has on Viktor. Saying instead, finally, with cold politeness: “Yes, Miss Savoy, that's right. Now—would you mind giving Mister Vasko and I a bit of _privacy_?”

  
“Prickly-prickly! Lak I _ain'_ had yo' doo-dad in my—”

  
Her brother sticks a mammoth boxer's paw on her shoulder. “ _Calme-toi,_ Sera; don' need to get 'im riled now, do we? He hard enough to work wit' as it is, him.”

  
“Uh huh. And where yo' gal at right now, _be-be?_ ”

  
“Makin' fritters. Y'all want some?”

  
He bats mock-charming lashes at her, 'till she shrugs, and steps back. “All right, den. We keep de car warm fo' you, Mor-de-cai; enjoy, Slovak man.”

  
“Excellent,” Mordecai grits, as they disappear again, and Viktor raises his brows. For in all the time he's known him, the only three people in St. Louis allowed to call oh-so-formal Mister Heller by his (ha ha) Christian name have, thus far, been Atlas May, Mitzi May, and Viktor himself.

  
“I'm confuse,” he rumbles. “Take me _years_ of being, ehhh—intimate vith you to tink you trust me, and even then, turns out I'm wrong. But _these_ vones—”

  
“What makes you think they're...?” Unimpressed by his tone, Viktor gives him the eye—the only one he has—until he stops, and starts over. “...yes, anyhow: The Savoys are odd, that's true, but they hold me in a certain amount of esteem, strangely enough, considering how comparatively short a time they've known me. And better yet—right now, they're all I have.”

  
“Vell, whose fault is that?”

  
Mordecai looks down again, appears to think hard. Then, without looking up, he makes an admission which, while Viktor doesn't begin to entirely understand its full significance, appears to cost him a good deal: “That would be...mine, yes. And Atlas's too, really.”

  
Uncertain how to answer, Viktor chooses to simply nod: _All right._ And is rewarded by the welcome sight of Mordecai slipping his spectacles off, stowing them in his breast pocket, then blinking up at him myopically while he steps forward, broaching the space between them. Continuing, as he does—

  
“Besides which—I do trust you, obviously. I wouldn't be here at all, otherwise.”

  
Viktor taps cane against knee lightly, and winces, nevertheless. “Vhy _this_ happen, then?”

  
Without hesitation: “Because you trusted _me_ , idiot; an inaccurate and very dangerous assumption, on your part. Maybe you should start thinking about why you would ever have been so foolish as to do something like that, at some point, before you get yourself killed.”

  
Viktor looks at him, long and hard. Mordecai doesn't flinch; he never does. This is one of the things Viktor likes most about him, as well as one of the things he likes least.

  
Thinking, as he does: _But you see, I_ love _you, little man—and you love me too, in your way. So even if you decide you have to prove you don't by putting a bullet in me, I still won't stop, ever. It's that simple._

  
No point in saying any of this, though. Which is why he just stands there, aware that Mordecai probably doesn't understand, but hoping against hope that someday—perhaps not today, this moment, but _someday_ —he finally will.

  
And: “No,” he says, at last, before pulling him in, half-hoisting him so they're cheek to cheek, ignoring the way both knees scream in protest. And kisses him, faster than Mordecai can object; one hand in his hair, one arm 'round his waist, letting go the cane, to fall where it may. Willing to take the consequences, no matter what they turn out to be.

  
Giving himself over to pleasure, bracing himself for pain. Yet in the end, Mordecai, unpredictable creature that he is—perhaps caught off-guard, or stunned, or...who even knows, with him?—

  
—just lets him.

  
THE END


End file.
